Civilization and Ice

When first I moved to Chicago, as a graduate student,
the winters were an amazement. Frozen air from the north,
lake moisture from the east, and warm, humid air from the south
met on Michigan Avenue, just south of the river. Sometimes
the snow was as soggy as a swamp, and it froze glacier still.

"Native peoples used to live here!", I often thought. "Why?"

I imagined shelters, partially dug into the ground, covered with
whatever Illinois offered. Had they never heard of Miami Beach?
There were, in fact, Miami Indians living in Illinois:
that is my idea of what it is to be a Lost Tribe of Israel.

So here I am in Minnesota! The garage heater in our garage
has died an ignominious death, sputtering and coughing,
and our pipes are in danger of freezing. The assumption,
when this house was built, was that the water pipes could go out there
to a washing machine, because there would be a gas heater,
hanging from the ceiling, that would keep the temperature
comfortably above freezing. No problem! Until now.

Now the space heater is lying on the garage floor.
I have a portable radiant heater aimed at the washer and pipes.
It is a heck of a lot warmer than Chicago on the lake shore
when the Ho-Chunk and the Illini lived there, before
the Sears Tower and Mayor Daley and the Cubs,
but a lot of things have to work just right to stay warm.

Civilization is a fragile shelter.

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